Monday, March 10, 2014

Like many indigenous cuisines from all over the world, the diet was based on simple but nourishing preparations, here made largely with fish, root crops, tropical fruit, coconut and leafy greens, the best of the earth and ocean.

He laments, however, that in modern times, "in an ironic madness, . . . 'tourism food', largely devoid of genuine Samoan content, was then deemed by the traveling public, to be 'Samoan food.'"

Sapasui? Samoanized, true. "Scandalously good," to be sure. But still not Samoan.

None of these are Samoan in the pre-colonial sense; they're all imports. Just like Christianity isn't Samoan.

But Samoans have adopted and to a large extent Samoanized Christianity, seamlessly imbedding it into their traditional way of life. So much so, that once when I asked a Samoan woman about the Samoans' pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices, the response I got amounted to, There weren't any other gods, we've always worshipped the Christian God.

And so it is with certain non-Samoan foods. I can't imagine a Samoa without those "cheap meat imports" that were, by Oliver's admission, "integrated into the traditional Samoan diet . . . [c]orned beef, lamb flaps, turkey tails, and chicken backs." I wonder if the Samoans themselves could imagine such a world.

So why do koko Samoa and watercress and sapasui receive Oliver's stamp of "genuine Samoan" while corned beef, turkey tails, and lamb flaps are relegated to the trash heap of colonialism?

I couldn't say, but it seems like Oliver is applying a double standard here. Part of it may stem from the privileged status that anything organic receives these days—Oliver makes a big deal out of the fact that Samoans are growing their foods organically. Or perhaps it's because cheap meat imports don't get much attention from Samoa's professional chefs, not being very chic.

Whatever the case, it's a double standard, and Oliver's problem stems from spending more time, it seems, "in restaurants all over Samoa" than in eating at Samoans' homes.

So while "Samoa is proudly shaking off the last vestiges of colonialism," Samoa is apparently proudly clinging to another, though chic, set of colonialism's vestiges: Rice, chop suey, watercress, vanilla beans, etc.